Gets Brickbats for Inaction & Apathy
On 4th March, officials of the Noida Authority visited the sector for a meeting. Information about this meeting was posted in advance on the social media page of Noida Authority and this enhanced public participation seems to be an endeavour to secure top positions in the Swachh Survekshan (SS) 2025 rankings. Govind Sharma and S C Mittal were present from the RWCS along with a handful of residents, mostly from B-Block while Noida Authority was represented by two junior officials and some others.
Mr Sharma and Mr Mittal questioned the Noida Authority about the inaction and apathy shown.
Calling the entire exercise ‘eyewash’, they angrily questioned the two officers as to why they were present if they could not get work done. They raised issues like cleaning parks, trimming trees, and non-removal of green garbage from roadsides and others. Mr Sharma questioned why the RW&CS was not informed a day in advance regarding tree pruning as the electricity department needs to be contacted to shut off the supply.Mr Mittal said that better-quality drain slabs are required which don’t break when cars are parked on them.
The Noida Authority officers kept assuring RW&CS that they would address the concerns but Mr Sharma pointed out that the horticulture department had met RW&CS three weeks back and offered action but no action had materialised. Lashing out at the officials Govind Sharma called the officials ‘chikna ghada’ who have no sense of responsibility and make empty promises.
“You get a salary and you are supposed to ensure that the job is done. We don’t get paid and yet we get brickbats from residents because your guys don’t work,” said Mr Mittal. Girish Aneja and Anshuman Aggarwal raised the issue of improper water drainage in parks which causes parks to be flooded during rains and leads to mosquito breeding.
They said sweepers do not do their job properly and wondered why the sweepers had such poor-quality brooms with just 4-5 sticks on a long rod. Questions were also asked as to the plans of the Noida Authority to make water harvesting pits in parks.The Noida Authority officers said they would visit the next day to do a round of the sector and note the problems. But as the meeting ended, the officer said that most of the problems raised were for the horticulture department while he was from the civil department. To this, Govind Sharma acrimoniously remarked that this was the problem with Noida Authority where each department has to be approached separately for work and the departments do not seem to be communicating with each other. Things will change, he said, only when the officers at the top make things happen.
